Greg Marches Past Darwish In Hong Kong Open

France's World No28 Gregoire Marche stole the headlines during a second day of giant-killing at the Cathay Pacific Sun Hung Kai Financial Hong Kong Squash Open as he moved into the second round following a 3/1 win over former World No1 Karim Darwish.

Marche, whose career high ranking is World No27, pulled off arguably the biggest victory of his career against the tournament number six seed in what was a dynamic performance, displaying a dazzling array of shot-making abilities interspersed with some spectacular ball-retrieval.

It is a victory that came as a delight to the 24-year-old from Aix-En-Provence who has been nursing a calf injury throughout the summer, but he says the time away from court may have played a key role in his victory.

"I am very happy with that win especially considering I had an injury in my calf just two weeks ago," said Marche.

"I have worked hard to recover and I haven't played for about two months so to have this as my first match of the season and win is great.

"At the end of last season I had wins against Simon Rösner (World No.11) and LJ Anjema (World No.16) so I knew I could win big matches but I think that is the biggest win of my career and I'm really looking forward to the next match now."

While Darwish fell at the first hurdle there were no difficulties for the other seeds in action on day two, as Borja Golan, Peter Barker and Mohamed Elshorbagy eased through in comfortable fashion.

Golan, the Spanish World No7, didn't need to step on court to book his place in the second round as Dutchman Laurens Jan Anjema was forced to withdraw with a foot injury - while England's World No8 Barker and Egypt's World No3 Elshorbagy looked untroubled as they got past their compatriots Adrian Waller and Karim Abdel Gawad, respectively.

Indian World No16 Saurav Ghosal, who will be gunning for glory in September's Asian Games, impressed in his first round match-up with Henrik Mustonen of Finland, taking just 28 minutes to seal a 3/0 win while Chris Simpson dashed the hopes of local wildcard Tsz Fung Yip to end all home representation in the event.